A must-read release from CBTU:

The Coalition of Black Trade Unions (CBTU) are outraged by County Executive Scott Walker's budget he has submitted to the County Board .  He is proposing the elimination of hundreds of family-supporting county jobs.  The vast majority of those jobs are in the lowest wage classifications -- Housekeeping and Custodial positions at the Behavioral Health Division and the Court House and other county facilities, and Security positions at the Court House.  The workers targeted are overwhelming people of color.

These positions are paid $12.00 to $15.00 per hour.  Walker is proposing to privatize these jobs, so the incumbents will have to train their replacements or accept employment with the private vendor at a fraction of their current wages, with no health insurance, pensions, or other fringe benefits.

"Where was Sensenbrenner's outrage when George Bush made John Ashcroft the Attorney General immediately after Ashcroft lost a statewide election to someone who had died? How about after Bush made Spencer Abraham the Energy Secretary immediately after he lost reelection to his Senate seat? This is another example of the Republicans' willingness to stop at nothing to defeat the agenda of President Obama, no matter the cost, no matter the hypocrisy." - Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director.

I just concluded my most recent blog by saying that the right wing had very bad intentions regarding our right to vote. Shortly after I got that blog posted I came across a news item from the Washington Post that not only confirms what I just said, but also carries it even further. The Washington Post has obtained a leaked email by the Republican Party of Wisconsin spelling out some of their potential plans for possible voter intimidation on Election Day.

According to the story by the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, Mary Pat Flaherty, the RPW email sought “names of Milwaukee area veterans, policemen, security personnel, firefighters…” to volunteer at inner city polling places, presumably to challenge voters, disqualify voters and create long lines which will cause working people to leave the polls without voting. The email suggested such specific kinds of people apparently because they find inner city polling locations “more intimidating.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that a man has been charged for registering to vote and trying to register others after being convicted of a felony. While this specific case may not directly apply, it does bring up some very important questions that we should be asking ourselves. In Wisconsin convicted felons are not allowed to vote until after they have completed the terms of their sentence. That could mean a prison term in addition to a long extended period of supervision.

Convicted felons often have to serve very long periods of probation and/or parole after they leave prison. One of the major goals of this supervision is that they become productive and fully integrate back into society. Exactly how are they supposed to do that if they are barred from voting, one of the most basic rights/responsibilities that we have as citizens? Many of them hold down jobs, pay taxes, provide for their families but still Wisconsin law refuses their right to vote.

According to an ACLU study, 62,324 people with felony convictions in Wisconsin are not allowed to vote; however, 61% of these people are no longer incarcerated. By not allowing them to vote, we are hindering their ability to reinstate themselves as active members of the community. According to Senator Russ Feingold, “…the more doors we close on people trying to rejoin society, the more likely it is we will drive them back to the behaviors we want them to leave behind.”

Wisconsin ’s felony disfranchisement laws are more severe than those of several of its neighboring states. Michigan , Illinois , Indiana and Ohio all automatically restore voting rights upon release from incarceration. Disenfranchisement in Wisconsin also disproportionately affects African American males and other minority populations. The ACLU study found that one out of nine African Americans males are disenfranchised because of Wisconsin ’s ex-offender laws. This statistic places Wisconsin 11th in the nation for the disenfranchisement of African American voters. This is obviously unacceptable and some might even call it Jim Crow, Wisconsin style. It is a disgrace and the current law should be changed.

J.B. Van Hollen’s frivolous lawsuit against the Government Accountability Board, (GAB) is political mischief that could complicate voting for as many as 1 million people in Wisconsin. One Wisconsin Now, the League of Women Voters, municipal clerks, the GAB itself and many others have taken a stand against J.B. Van Hollen. Now the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Milwaukee Teachers Association are entering the fray.

Both organizations submitted a filing to the Dane County judge responsible for the case, arguing that Van Hollen’s checks are unreliable and could bar about 135,000 people who registered to vote in 2008 from the polls. The organizations also pointed to GAB figures that 15 percent of 53,515 registrants since August had failed the checks because of non-matches. Most of the non-matches are due to clerical errors, misspellings, a missing middle initial or an old address on a driver’s license. Even four of the six judges on the GAB board didn’t get exact matches.

Wisconsin’s Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is trying to remake himself into the very image of Florida’s infamous Katherine Harris. His filing of a frivolous lawsuit against the state’s Government Accountability Board (GAB) is little more than a politically calculated move to serve his party masters and apparently to suppress votes in November.

When the GOP didn’t get their way from the nonpartisan GAB, they turned to their highest ranking official in the state to make mischief with our most basic right as citizens. In preparation for the storm of criticism that he knew he was going to take for such a blatantly partisan action, Van Hollen taped an interview about the matter with Wisconsin Eye Wednesday. The interview raises only more questions about his actions and the potential impact on voters in November. In the interview Van Hollen, in a tellingly preemptive move, says that he wouldn’t be surprised if people accused him of filing this lawsuit because of his party affiliation. The AG “doth protest too much methinks” to borrow a famous phrase.

Obviously people are going to think that partisanship is at work because that is exactly where everything points. Van Hollen is a co-chair of the McCain presidential campaign, which stands to gain from the suppression of the voters that would be most likely impacted. Van Hollen is the highest ranking Republican in the state and his actions and argument follow exactly what his party said prior to their rejection at the nonpartisan GAB. So, yes, obviously anyone that is paying attention is going to question Van Hollen’s real motives. Even the state’s largest newspaper, which is often too milquetoast when it comes to the darlings of the right wing, flatly says that Van Hollen’s action “smells of political mischief.”

Every major election cycle we are forced to watch Republicans run the same drill, attempting to suppress the votes of people that are not likely to support them. Usually they lead the press by the nose making wild and unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud and then use those false claims to push policies like voter ID requirements which would disenfranchise people. We have seen right wing partisans that are supposed to run elections in battleground states but instead do everything in their power to disenfranchise voters. In every major election reports pour in detailing all manner of voter misinformation and intimidation. These are all things that we have seen before, but now it looks like Republicans are going to add a sick tactic by trying to capitalize on record home foreclosures.

Basically, if you have fallen on hard times and are losing your home to foreclosure, you may also lose your right to vote. In Michigan, the chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election. They plan to have people at the polls in very specific neighborhoods, and if someone tries to vote from an address that appears on their foreclosure list, they will challenge their right to vote. Forget the fact that many people are still living in their homes after foreclosure begins and are sometimes able to negotiate and refinance.

U.S. Senator John McCain is having a campaign rally in New Orleans tonight just before the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Who can forget the picture of a smiling McCain and George W. Bush holding a birthday cake the morning that the disaster hit? Even worse, who could forget that John McCain twice voted against the appointment of a commission to investigate the abysmal administration response to Katrina?

In a statement following Hurricane Katrina John McCain said that Americans should “come to the aid” of Katrina victims and then he voted to oppose extending unemployment benefits to the victims of the disaster. He also voted against granting them access to Medicaid at their most desperate time of need. Apparently his call to come to their aid did not extend to himself nor beyond his extreme ideology. Repeatedly John McCain’s actions have been the exact opposite of his words on Katrina. Will he take the time tonight to explain his record or will he pretend that it doesn’t exist and misuse the solemn occasion purely for politics? That, like his record on Katrina, would be a real tragedy.

U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-What's Wrong With You Sick, Frothing Morons?) is finally dead. Happy birthday, U.S. of A.

Helms was a hate-slathered cretin, whose campaigns and governing showed American democracy at its worst. "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races," thundered just one of many Helms' attacks over the decades.

Conservatives are saddened by the news. "Ol' 27 percent" George W. Bush was soiling his White House crying towel, calling Helms "kind," "decent" and "humble."

And while he had some admirers in Wisconsin, most notably Supreme Court Justice-Elect Mike Gableman's ad-writing team, Helms was a racist thug and the world mourns, simply because it took him so, so long to exit the world he befouled for over eight decades.

For my dough, I'm hoping Wonkette Editor Ken Layne has penned in "Jesse Helms: American Garbage," what will be a waterfall of appropriate tributes.

Feel free to add even better ones to the comment portion of this blog. Helms deserves it for all he did to people of color, gays, the poor and this nation's sense of decency. 

The following text (in two e-mails) below was received from timkisting@aol.com, commenting on a brief analysis (SC Decision Striking Down Gun Control Is Fine with This Progressive) on the Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), that was picked up in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Sunday.

Well, let's hope this guy, timkisting@aol.com, doesn't own a gun.

The ad hominem attempt (below among many) to insult by raising the possibility of my being a "fag" merits a reply: Being gay is okay. As is working for the people residing in "Milwaukee's ghetto population".

Congressman F. Jim Sensenbrenner must have way too much time on his hands. He must be spending it reading all of the right wing blog hysteria over flood victims in Milwaukee actually getting aid. Earlier this week people in Milwaukee’s central city stood in line to get food vouchers. There was apparently some confusion and frustration at the site which led to some pushing and shoving prompting a police response. After the incident right wing bloggers went completely nuts. Suddenly they declared the incident a full blown “riot” even though it had very few of the traits that one would associate with an actual riot.

Next they started overanalyzing pictures in the paper, doing fashion checks on those that stood in line. They began to show outrage because some of the people seeking aid actually had cell phones. Oh the horror! They even went to another sleazy low by commenting on the flood victim’s weight, and wondering why they would need food. It has really been a disgusting display feeding into all of the same racist stereotypes that apparently still plague our society. Now F. Jim Sensenbrenner has decided to jump in, trying to give some legitimacy to many of the fowl things being said on the right.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is conducting a nationwide “Road to Healthcare” campaign. During the effort, SEIU has traveled by bus all across the country educating people on the healthcare issue and enlisting people to demand the same quality healthcare that our public officials receive. They were also calling for an end to the many racial disparities that exist in our current dysfunctional healthcare system. Their latest stop was today at Milwaukee’s Juneteenth celebration.

The SEIU bus was set up on MLK near Center Street. In front of the bus were several tables where the SEIU passed out literature on healthcare and asked people to sign cards to their elected officials demanding universal healthcare. They were also asking people to sign cards to officials asking them to support the full rights to form a union as protected in the Free Choice Act. After I signed a health care card, a member of SEIU declared that I was now “deputized” in the fight for universal healthcare. He then gave me an SEIU “Road to Health Care” pin that declared, “Healthcare for all, NOW!”

As soon as I turned the corner from Center Street onto Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, I was instantly able to take in the festive atmosphere from Milwaukee’s 2008 Juneteenth celebration. For those that may not know, Juneteenth is a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. The atmosphere today reminds me of just about every festival of its kind. Music fills the air from the radio stations and the live musicians playing along the sidewalk. Yet another indication of a Milwaukee summer festival was the smell of all kinds of food being cooked and served all along MLK Drive.

The Juneteenth celebration takes place on MLK Drive from Center Street all the way north to Burleigh. On both sides of the street are booths and venders of all types. Some are selling CD’s and music, while others are selling African style clothes, jewelry and t-shirts with a message. I also found many booths from various organizations and public officials. Below I have listed just some of the organizations that had a booth or some kind of presence at Juneteenth this year:

Service Employees International Union (more details to follow), MATC, UWM, Peace Action Wisconsin, The Milwaukee Fire Department (with a mobile “safety house for kids”), Several Milwaukee Churches, WMCS 1290, V100 Radio, Various Public Officials, and a City of Milwaukee Mobile Health Unit